At an event in London last week, entitled Private Networks in a 5G World, Vodafone reiterated its opposition to Germany’s decision to reserve spectrum for industrial use, a policy which is likely to prove influential as other regulators start to consider industrial requirements for 5G. The German regulator, BNetza, has set aside 100 MHz of spectrum in the 3.7-3.8 GHz band, with 10-year licences allocated on demand, with preference going to Industrie 4.0 or agricultural and forestry applications. This policy encountered fierce opposition from the MNOs, which claim the strategy inflated spectrum prices in the 2019 5G auction and will make it harder for them to meet their coverage obligations. Deutsche Telekom has already complained that the high prices it…